Culture and Privilege in Capitalist Asia - Jurusan Antropologi ...

198 CULTURAL TENSIONS IN RURAL INDONESIA
lower-status neighbours. She could not see why she, as a rich resident, should
provide food for neighbours at ritual celebrations, as community norms prescribe.
And, as a schoolteacher, she also needs to keep a social distance from the parents
of her pupils, or so she claims. It is easier to mix with relatives, she explained,
because one does not need to count what is being served and also because status
is more easily defined as it is based on kinship. Some of the ‘traditional’ rich in
Sariendah, those who have maintained their position over generations, scorned the
attitude of the Agus family. They would rather see the Aguses spend their wealth in
more conventional ways: on rituals, buying land, and productive enterprises. But
Cep Agus is not alone in his new lifestyle. In 1991 there were a dozen families in
Sariendah who maintained a similar attitude towards their wealth: that it was for
private, albeit often conspicuous, consumption and that other people should not
really bother about it.
To a high degree, these new-rich lifestyles are supported by the ideology of the
government. The principle behind the New Order modernisation programme is
‘betting on the strong’, in which prosperity and modernity are achieved by a middle
class whose wealth will eventually trickle down to the poor. When the new rich live
their new life, they do so with the tacit (and often not so tacit) approval of state
ideology. The self-image of the new rich, even in a small Sundanese village, is that
they are the avant-garde who must drag the masih bodoh, the uneducated and
poor, into the future. Cep Agus and Sunarya are both very aware of this mission.
For them, working in Bandung and living modern was more than a question of
lifestyle. It was an attitude, indeed a moral obligation, to maintain their present
living standards and provide an example for others to follow.
Generally speaking, and this is unlike the situation in Europe, North America
and perhaps even upper middle-class Jakarta, cultural distinctions are not very
important in the creation of class identity in rural Indonesia. Sariendah is a fairly
homogeneous social setting, and differences in lifestyles and tastes are not very
great (although they are on the increase). It has been argued that cultural
exclusiveness is one of the prime boundary markers in Europe (Bourdieu 1984;
Featherstone 1991; Lamont 1992). Likewise, in colonial Java class distinctions
between the hereditary elite (priyayi/menak) and commoners (wong cilik/jelma
leutik) were marked by a cultural exclusivity according to which the elite and
commoners hardly shared the same imagined community: they literally lived
worlds apart. While ascriptive superiority and aesthetic sophistication may once
have been the markers of social difference, class distinctions in contemporary
Indonesia are made more on the basis of bureaucratic incorporation, patterns of
consumption, and wealth.
Cep Agus did not doubt that his lifestyle was the correct way for Indonesia to be
transported into the future. And in this, he could successfully associate himself with
the state ideology of pembangunan (‘development’). 4 According to President
Suharto, pembangunan represents an ‘all-encompassing change in which the
society becomes modern, prosperous, just, peaceful and built upon Pancasila’. 5 In